Sweet destruction
by Inkfire
Summary: Dolohov teaches Bellatrix the fine art of blowing things up. Collaboration written for the Collab challenge on The Dark Lord's Most Faithful forum.


**This story is a collaboration I wrote with TellatrixForever for the Collab challenge on The Dark Lord's Most Faithful forum. His prompt was:**

_**Dolohov and Bellatrix. Blowing Something Up. Humour. **_

**Common outline, he wrote the beginning, I wrote the end =)**

* * *

"Whatcha doing, Ant?" asked Bellatrix as she walked into her friend's room. Her sister had allowed them to stay with her after they got out. Dolohov was leaning over his bench like a mad scientist.

Antonin nearly jumped sky high. He growled, "Bella, don't sneak up on me. This is a very delicate operation."

Bella walked over to the workbench and saw what Dolohov was working on. It was in the shape of a normal book, but had several wires coming out of it as well as several work tools and Antonin's wand on the table. It also had a small box that had a switch on it.

She tilted her head to the side, picked up the box and asked, "What's all this?"

As she was about to touch the switch, Dolohov took it from her hands, and said, "Bellatrix, don't do that. If you had pushed that switch, this thing would've blown us both to Hell and Back."

"Well what the Bloody Hell is this thing?" demanded the Dark Witch.

Antonin put the box down and said, "The book, my Friend, is a Magical Bomb. This little black box? That's the detonator."

Bella gasped and demanded with anger and hysteria in her voice, "WHY WOULD YOU USE MUGGLE DEVICES? DO YOU KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF THE DARK LORD FINDS OUT ABOUT THIS?"

Antonin, unfazed by the sudden shriek, calmly said, "Bella, this isn't a Muggle Device. Back in 1976, I went on a Mission for the Dark Lord in Laos. I witnessed hundreds of Muggles using Bombs to blow things up. I hate the fact that Muggles know how to do this without Magic. But I also had an idea. If they can cause that much destruction without Magic, what could happen if it HAD Magic in it?"

Bellatrix stared at her friend with mixed emotions on her face. On one hand, she was disgusted by the idea that her best friend had been inspired by Muggles. On the other hand, she was fascinated. He claimed it could bring destruction and pain. She finally asked, "How does it work, and how did you make it?"

Dolohov smiled and explained, "Basically, I transfigured some of your Brother-In-Law's plants into some Semtex, a wonderful plastic explosive from my Mother's home country of Czechoslovakia. Then, I infused my magic into it and added in some explosive curses into it as well for when it goes off. We plant it on a target, then once we're out of the blast range, we flip the switch on this detonator. Boom. End of Target."

Bella took a moment to take it all in before saying bluntly, "Use it. Prove to me that it's worth investing time in."

The older man put the bomb down and said, "Well first off, we are NOT using this one. If we did, this entire building would come down and take out everyone inside. But I do have something we can test."

As he said that, he pulled out another device that looked oddly familiar to Lucius' Pimp Cane.

"That belongs to Lucius," Bellatrix couldn't help but comment, and Antonin rolled his eyes.

"Whatever. Believe me, if I show you what those can do, Lucius will have better things to complain about than the cane's disappearance."

The witch just smiled widely in response, and followed her friend out of the room, excitement taking over her reticence more than more with each step.

Antonin set the bomb in the wide gardens, explaining the process to Bella as he went, before he grabbed her by the arm and started hauling her away.

"What are you doing? I want to see the destruction and pain!" she shouted, trying to push him off.

"You'd better see it from a distance if you want to do so more than once," he shot back over his shoulder. He tugged her all the way to the entrance of the manor before he brandished the switch with a slightly demented expression.

"May I ask what the pair of you has been up to, in my gardens?" asked Lucius Malfoy's suspicious-sounding voice, coming from behind them. Bellatrix let out a high, hysterical giggle.

"Pain and destruction, my friend," Antonin dramatically proclaimed, before he pushed the switch.

* * *

A few seconds trickled by in stunned silence, after it was over.

Bellatrix slowly opened her eyes, which she had instinctively shut as the bomb went off, and blinked once, then twice. Looking down at herself, she stared at the little spots of unidentified red substance adorning her robes. There was more red stuff on the gravel path before them, then more and more and more and some more still as her gaze glided forward, until the ground was nothing but a uniform, flat surface painted bright scarlet, with a few white feathers and green leaves to decorate – where the space ought not to have been flat at all. There were also scraps of things that, put together, had probably once shaped a lovely white peacock. Or two.

Or perhaps more.

"That was the lightest one, I'm telling you," Dolohov declared grandly, stretching his arms out towards his handiwork. "With the bigger one you saw earlier… We would be coating the floor as well. All the way into… well, what would be left of your lovely home, Lucius. Speaking of – what say you?"

Lucius opened his mouth, then closed it again, and repeated the motion slowly, several times. His hair was dishevelled with the force of the blow – Bella's, of course, could barely be called hair anymore – and funnily enough, he had also received his share of peacock remnants.

A long, drawn-out shriek came from the entrance hall at that point. Oops – Narcissa had been quite fond of her pretty gardens, Bellatrix remembered. Before they got flattened and covered in peacock mush, that is.

The piercing sound snapped her out of her state of shock, at long last, and Bella strongly desired to communicate to Antonin all of the lovely ideas that the blast had created into her head – but as she endeavoured to word them, they got drowned out by the unhinged cackles that were flowing relentlessly from her parted lips.

* * *

"Pain and destruction, pain and destruction, and success… Um… controlled pain and destruction… yes," Bellatrix muttered as she paced restlessly. Her wand was emitting tiny and sometimes not so tiny sparks, effectively scaring off the animals in a rather large perimeter.

When she had mentioned a bomb powerful enough to put the Hogwarts Express to a halt and create enough havoc for them to break in and grab Potter, Dolohov had been rather enthusiastic, and positive, at the very least, that he could handle it. However, Dolohov was quite unfortunately back to rotting in prison at the moment, and Bella had been left with the completed bomb to deal with the rest of the operations. Not that she wouldn't make it, she thought smugly. The bomb was already in place – safely hidden in her nephew's luggage. Definitely, Draco had no idea how valuable his sheer existence was to the Dark Lord's plans. Hopefully he would be standing at a sufficient distance when the bomb got off to be able to enjoy it all a little bit longer – that, and the use of his limbs. Anyway. Bellatrix was getting nervous again. "Nephew-free pain and destruction, and success, and the Dark Lord will be so happy with me…" she chanted under her breath. The sound of her voice sounded slightly off – too high.

The train couldn't be too far away now. Of course it would have been more convenient to know its exact trajectory, but the blast would be huge enough to make everything very nice and noticeable, and no plan was ever entirely flawless besides. Even brilliant ones… Bellatrix took a deep breath and grabbed the switch, pushing it roughly.

She could hear the explosion, quite nearby from the sound of it. "I knew it!" she squealed, and started running in that direction, holding tightly onto her wand, slipping in her clammy palm. Shortly the train was in sight, a beautiful mess of broken things with screams echoing from it – and then the Mark burned, abruptly halting her.

Bellatrix's first move was to start running again, haul Potter from the train and hope for the best. However, the Mark scorched on and on, and she could see people running around the train like little ants whose hill had just received an almighty kick – people waving their wands… people who weren't screaming and in shock, people who would recognize her, try to stop her. Exactly the contrary of what she had been hoping for. The pain in her arm turned everything into an excruciating haze and she began to choke with the panic of impending failure. Tormented, she hovered, clutching her twitching limb before she eventually gave up and Apparated away with a short screech of frustration.

The Dark Lord's glacial stare as she stumbled into the manor's drawing room, where the meeting was held, was nothing short of withering. As a matter of fact, it very nearly made her turn around and run back out.

"Where were you?" He demanded icily, and she stammered, unsure as to whether she ought to reveal that she had taken the initiative on such a considerable issue as the matter of Potter's capture – initiative which had ended up failing lamentably.

"It does not matter," He breathed in a sibilant hiss before she could regain her composure. "I shall deal with you later. Sit, and make us waste no more time."

Bellatrix gratefully dropped into a seat; however, she was keenly aware that the danger had only been postponed, and scrambled her brains, all throughout the meeting, for a suitable way to defend herself. She could find none.

As the Dark Lord was about to dismiss them, a valuable distraction indeed was brought in the form of an owl that flew right into the room, to the Death Eaters' astonishment, to deliver to Narcissa a letter which bore the Ministry's seal. Bellatrix, eager to find the attention deflected from her, anxiously watched her sister's face turn chalk white as she read.

"My Lord," said the latter in a strangled voice, "the Ministry is informing me that they are holding Draco in London – he has just been arrested for an attack in the Hogwarts Express, with a bomb. I… do not understand, there must have been a mistake…"

Bellatrix cowered on her seat, afraid to meet her master's gaze. However, as there was no reaction to be heard, she eventually, warily peered up.

The Dark Lord's mouth was opening and closing silently, words apparently failing Him."Salazar's b…" she thought she heard Him murmur before the end of the interjection died upon His thin lips. He drew in a deep breath, scarlet eyes seeming to bulge out of His head. "FUCK!" He erupted, and was left panting, His rage swelling, doubled by His own unfortunate outburst, while He fought to regain self-control.

_My thoughts exactly,_ Bellatrix mused miserably as her master raised His wand.


End file.
